Spirituality in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

Spirituality in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

            One of the main themes in T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land is spirituality. This theme is most explicitly demonstrated in the first section of the poem, The Burial of the Dead. Eliot makes references to the Bible three times, in lines 20, 23, and 25. The references allude to passages in the Bible in which Ezekial is addressed by God, a preacher speaks about fearing old age, and the blessings of Christ’s kingdom are described (respectively). In the third section of the poem, The Fire Sermon, the biblical citations continue. Eliot writes, “By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept…” (182). This is a reference to Psalm 137, in which the Hebrews yearn to return to their homeland. Eliot includes this to describe how he feels about his current situation— he wishes he could go back to past times. In the last section, What the Thunder Said, Eliot makes a reference to Upanishad, from the Hindu religion. The line translates as “The Peace which passeth understanding”. Eliot is encouraging the reader to live life peacefully and through God. The fact that three sections of The Waste Land contain references to religious works helps to keep a consistent theme and bring the sections together. Even though the stories of each section are all distinct, the spiritual undertone in each one proves that religion is not only a major aspect of the poem, but also should be a major aspect of real life.

Just the description of the waste land itself, throughout the entire poem, can contribute to the theme of spirituality. With its desolate and lifeless appearance, the waste land represents a sort of hell in which man has no meaning; it symbolizes the decline of spirituality in the modern world. The Burial of the Dead contains descriptions of “lilacs out of the dead land” (2), “branches [growing] out of this stony rubbish” (19-20), and “the brown fog of a winter dawn” (61). These images are unappealing and unattractive; Eliot wants the reader to realize the desperate state that the world will be in without religion. This kind of imagery is continued in the The Fire Sermon. Eliot writes of “wind [crossing] the brown land, unheard” (174-175), “the rattle of bones” (186), “a rat creeping softly through the vegetation dragging its slimy belly on the bank” (187-188), and “the river [sweating] oil and tar” (266-267). He intertwines the first three of these images with one of a man crying to further depress the reader and make his point. Although there is slightly more life in these descriptions, the tone still remains hopeless, and Eliot’s goal in affecting the reader is the same. Finally, Eliot ends his poem with What the Thunder Said. In this section, two people are walking together in a stony landscape that contains no water— “Here is no water but only rock / Rock and no water and the sandy road” (131-132). The lack of water is most likely meant to represent an absence of life, because water is the substance that is necessary for all living things. We can attribute the theme of spirituality to this: without religion, there will be no life.